Corn
stalk cutter used in lieu of a hand-held corn knife when shocking corn.
Sprawling over 236 pages, the catalog offered every conceivable plow share, walking plow, sulky plow, gang plow, harrow, planter,
stalk cutter, cultivator, drill, hay loader and wagon, in addition to a limited selection of products built by other manufacturers, including Adriance harvesting machinery and mowers, McDonald Bros.
Blue's first invention seems to have been a
stalk cutter that he patented in 1891.
Other pieces in the collection include cultivators and plows, dump rakes, grain drills, hay press and loader,
stalk cutter, earth mover, box sower, portable elevator, manure spreader, binder, picker, shellers, scales, and more.
As Avery's daughter Sadie wrote later: "At last the machine was ready, but the market did not respond." Broke and in debt, Avery moved to Kansas, where he farmed and tinkered with a new
stalk cutter. By 1872, Avery was back in Galesburg and he and Cyrus began to manufacture a spiral knife
stalk cutter.
Jones steel header, and a footrest from a Parlin & Orendorff
stalk cutter. "I might buy an interesting piece because it appeals to me visually," Jim says.
Once I told him what I had found, he changed his Web site to reflect that the implement was a corn
stalk cutter and had a price of $1,500.
Case manufactured 58 categories of farming equipment-including mowers, grain drills, cultivators, plows, corn binders and
stalk cutters - as well as construction machinery.
By 1891, the company was producing steam engines, corn planters, cultivators and
stalk cutters. Beginning in the late 1800s and continuing for more than 30 years, the company manufactured wooden threshers in eight sizes ranging from a small 19-by-30-inch model to a large 42-by-70-inch unit.
A pair of
stalk cutters is also prominently displayed.
The back third is a gem of a section covering soup to nuts: very interesting and rare free-standing shellers, box shellers, World War II-era scrap metal drives, check wire and rope, corn planters, leg-mounted
stalk cutters, shock binders, husking pegs, seed corn dryers, fence post signs, sacks and other memorabilia.
By the early 20th century, Parlin & Orendorff claimed to be "The largest and oldest permanently established plow factory on earth," with a full line of moldboard and disc plows, listers,
stalk cutters, disc, spike tooth and spade harrows, corn and beet planters and all kinds of cultivators.